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Saturday, 12 October 2013

Cadillac

Cadillac

Cadillacis a division of United States-based General Motors Company
(GM) that markets luxury vehicles worldwide. Cadillac's primary markets
are the United States, Canada, and China. Cadillac-branded vehicles are
also distributed in 34 additional markets worldwide. In 2012, Cadillac's U.S. sales were 149,782 vehicles.
The SRX crossover has been Cadillac's best selling model since 2010.
Cadillac is currently the second oldest American automobile brand following fellow GM marque Buick and is among the oldest automobile brands in the world. Cadillac was founded in 1902 by Henry Leland, a master mechanic and entrepreneur, who named the company after Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, the founder of the city of Detroit, and the Cadillac crest is based upon his coat of arms.

Early history

Foundation

Cadillac was formed from the remnants of the Henry Ford Company.
After Henry Ford departed the Henry Ford Company along with several of
his key partners in March 1902, the company was dissolved. Ford's
financial backers, William Murphy and Lemuel Bowen, called in engineer Henry M. Leland
of Leland & Faulconer Manufacturing Company to appraise the plant
and equipment in preparation for a liquidation of the company's assets.
Instead of offering an appraisal, Leland persuaded Murphy and Bowen
to continue manufacturing automobiles using Leland's proven
single-cylinder engine. A new company called the Cadillac Automobile
Company was established on 22 August 1902. The company was named after
French explorer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, who founded Detroit in 1701.

First automobiles

1903 Cadillac Model A

Cadillac's first automobiles, the Runabout and Tonneau, were completed in October 1902. They were two-seat horseless carriages powered by a 10 hp (7 kW) single-cylinder engine. They were practically identical to the 1903 Ford Model A. Many sources say the first car rolled out of the factory on 17 October; in the book Henry Leland – Master of Precision,
the date is 20 October; another reliable source shows car number 3 to
have been built on 16 October. Cadillac displayed the new vehicles at
the New York Auto Show
in January 1903, where the vehicles impressed the crowds enough to
gather over 2,000 firm orders. Cadillac's biggest selling point was
precision manufacturing, and therefore, reliability; a Cadillac was
simply a better-made vehicle than its competitors.

1915 Cadillac introduced a 90-degree flathead V8 engine with 70 horsepower (52 kW) at 2400 rpm and 180 pound-feet (240 N·m) of torque, allowing its cars to attain 65 miles per hour.
This was faster than most roads could accommodate at this time.
Cadillac pioneered the dual-plane V8 crankshaft in 1918. In 1928
Cadillac introduced the first clashless Synchro-Mesh manual transmission, utilizing constant mesh gears. In 1930 Cadillac implemented the first V-16
engine, with a 45-degree overhead valve, 452 cubic inches, and 165
horsepower (123 kW), one of the most powerful and quietest engines in
the United States. The development and introduction of the V8, V16 and V-12 helped to make Cadillac the "Standard of the World."
A later model of the V8 engine, known as the overhead valve, set the
standard for the entire American automotive industry in 1949.
In July 1917, the United States Army
needed a dependable staff car and chose the Cadillac Type 55 Touring
Model after exhaustive tests on the Mexican border. 2,350 of the cars
were supplied for use in France by officers of the American Expeditionary Force during World War I.
General Motors of Canada built Cadillac 1923 to 1936 and saved it from
A. P. Sloan from his wanting to stop the build. Pre-World War II
Cadillacs were well-built, powerful, mass-produced luxury cars aimed at
an upper class market. In the 1930s, Cadillac added cars with V12 and V16 engines to their range, many of which were fitted with custom coach-built bodies.

Cadillac introduced a new design philosophy for the 21st century called "Art and Science"
which it claims "incorporates sharp, sheer forms and crisp edges – a
form vocabulary that expresses bold, high-technology design and invokes
the technology used to design it." This new design language spread from
the original CTS and to the Cadillac XLR
roadster. Cadillac's model lineup mostly included rear- and
all-wheel-drive sedans, roadsters, crossovers and SUVs. The only
exceptions were the front-wheel drive Cadillac BLS (which was not sold in North America) and the Cadillac DTS, neither of which are still in production. The second-generation CTS-V is a direct competitor to the BMW M5. An automatic version of the CTS-V lapped the Nürburgring in 7:59.32, at the time a record for production sedans.